buy sulfur at a store?

i think i might have read somewhere, that you can buy sulfur at a store and that it might be in the gardening section, is this true? ,and if so, will it just be plain sulfur? because i might make some blackpowder.

You can get "dusting sulfur" at many hardware stores in the gardening department... It may also be called "sulfur pellets" or something like that.... Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, and some other common stores have been known to have it, but I rarely see it...

In addition to frogy's post, i'd like to say that I have seen it at Lowes. Although i'm not sure if it's pure enough, it was under the name of organic sulfur in the gardening section. It is 90% sulfur.

The sulfur you get from a garden center will work fine. It's typically 90% sulfur, 10% clay. In your typical 75/15/10 BP formula that gives you only 1% inert material and it won't make a rats ass of difference. Your charcoal and your milling process is much more important to the quality of your product.

Just for shits and grins I recently made a batch of BP using stump remover, cowboy charcoal milled in a coffee grinder, and garden sulfur, and corned it through a window screen. It worked fine. It was nowhere near as fast as BP made with pure sulfur, poplar charcoal milled for 24 hours and pure KNO3, but it was perfectly serviceable for our purposes.

Don't get caught up in the fasted BP mania, you only need BP as fast as YOU need it. The joy of our hobby is that it's a journey of discovery. There is no best, no absolute. Don't ask what's best, experiment and tell us what's best in your experience. That's what adds to the datebase of our hobby; people who try different things, fail, try to figure out why, and try again. Don't ask for an answer, SEARCH for an answer and report back on your work.

Damned, after re-reading that last paragraph I hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic playing in the background............. Goddamn , what a preachy asshole.

"There is no such thing as paranoia. It's always worse than you think."

All wood is not created equal either. The willow from around here is going to have a lot more ash than say texas or something. I live on a giant bed of limestone, and the soil is quite full of calcium and magnesium. The well water is delicious though. Probably what makes all the farm boys into linebacker types.

I would like to add to the sulphur part and a question on the spelling. What is the true and correct spelling of sulfur? is it "sulphur", "sulfur", "sulfer", or "sulpher?"

To buy sulfur go to mom and pop garden shops.

Take one pound of native sulfur, two pounds of linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter, which three things are very finely powderen on a marble slab. Then put as much powder as diesired into a case to make flying fire or thunder. ~ Liber Ignium ad comburendos Hostes by Marcus Graecus

Take one pound of native sulfur, two pounds of linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter, which three things are very finely powderen on a marble slab. Then put as much powder as diesired into a case to make flying fire or thunder. ~ Liber Ignium ad comburendos Hostes by Marcus Graecus

I just bought 5 pounds at Lowe's for $6. Quite a deal if you ask me. It's "Espoma" brand Garden Sulfur. It comes in little pellets which can be easily ground down to powder. A BP batch I made today with stump remover, this sulfur, and cowboy charcoal burns pretty fast after milling for 12 hours. I'm gonna leave it in the mill for several days just to see if it makes a difference.

I just bought 5 pounds It's "Espoma" brand Garden Sulfur. It comes in little pellets which can be easily ground down to powder.

That's the same brand I used in the batch I refer to in my previous post. I did find that these little half-circle pellets don't mill very rapidly; after 6 hrs in the mill there were still plenty of un-ground pellets. I let it run for another 12 hrs. IIRC, and made this meal into decent, if not spectacular BP.

"There is no such thing as paranoia. It's always worse than you think."

I ground my sulfur down in a mortar and pestle before putting it in the mill. I let the mill run for 24 hours and then granulated the meal into coarse powder. It isn't as fast as BP made with pure chemicals, but it's not bad at all.
Also, you can't beat 39 cents for 200 grams of black powder.

I also have a question about garden sulfur, i was at a Garden / Farming store the other day and ran across "Green Light Wettable Dusting Sulfur" As in the link above, i am wondering if this stuff is ok to use for black powder?, i know it contains about 90% Sulfur and 10% of something else which i am not sure of.

A twelve inch shell, the quickest way to send a message to heavenWPA Member

I guess I'll throw this in there. I'm running low on dusting sulfer. It is expensive compared to these 90% alternatives. I am in no way looking for competetion-grade BP's so these should do fine for me/us.

I can't remember. What is the high acid content sulfur? Either flowers is good and flour is bad or something to that effect. If someone knows what I am trying to say, please clear this up.

We will all forget how long it took you to do it, but we will remember how well you did it.